 and welcome to the 26th, yes, 26th episode of Tech Pad. Today, we've got a well-planned, as per usual, Tech Pad, and we're coming at you live in the LPN podcasting room. Nice. Yeah, live. And today, we're going to have a pretty good discussion on some interesting audio stuff. So without further ado, I'm Jackson, and this is Blaze. Let's get started. All right. So first off, we're always going to start with a news article. This one's about write-to-repair. Then we'll be going into high-fidelity sound, audio, and be discussing that stuff. Should be pretty fun. Yeah, for the news article. And are we getting good audio? Got there. All right, cool. All right, so the article, as you can see, is from Apple. So a little biased, to say the least, is released on November 17th, 2021. And it's called Apple Announces Self-Service Repair and subtitled Apple Parts, Tools, and Manuals, starting with iPhone 12 and iPhone 13, available to individual consumers. So that's always nice. It's been a big thing with Apple. They big can hammered. But not. Also, John, do you? Oh, yeah, John. A lot of companies have been getting hit on pretty hard for that. All right, so just starting with it. Apple today and on self-service repair? Self-service? Self-service. Self-service. Self-repair. We use an app called self-service. Oh, yeah, I forgot about the self-service app. Yes, which will allow customers who are comfortable with completing their own repairs access to Apple Genius Parts and Tools, available first for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 lineups. And soon to be followed by Mac computers featuring M1 chips, self-service repair will be available early next year in the US and expand to additional countries throughout 2022. Customers join more than 5,000 Apple authorized service providers, AASPs, and 2,800 independent repair providers who have access to these parts, tools, and manuals. The initial phase of the program will focus on the most commonly service modules, such as the iPhone display, battery, camera, the ability for additional repairs will be available later next year. So it sounds very promising. And that's pretty much all they went over. Which would sound good. That's pretty much some of it. I'm excited. I'm excited, but I don't know how easy it is to make their things super hard to repair. And I've been scarred. Expensive parts, which I feel like they're going to mark that up a lot. Look on the iMac, right? I mean, the 27-inch, I guess they don't do it on the M1 iMacs anymore. You can replace the memory. I mean, that was awesome. You could add more memory if you wanted, but we'll have to see the way that that turns out. See if there is upgradeable, too, as well as repair. All right, well, let's get started on our topic for today. All right, Henry, you can take my screen off now. Good. All right. Cool. So should we go over a few definitions? Sure, let's do it. So audio, you can take that one. Audio? Definition of audio. See how close you get to it. Audio is the thing you're hearing right now. It's the sound that is coming out of your speakers, or it's what your computer is generating. It's just what you hear. It's like recorded, transmitted, and reproduced. Yeah, as you said. Now, sound is vibrations that travel through air or another medium and can be heard when they reach a person here. So it's a little different. Yeah. Audio is sound that's especially through speakers in that. Or audio is especially sound through speakers. And sound is just sound. Sound is sound? Sound. That's a quote right there. Sound is sound. Almost as bad as the infamous quote at Long High School. Mixing is mixing. Mixing is mixing. It's a fact. So that's an insight, Joe. What is high fidelity, Jackson? High fidelity. Well, it depends on who you are. But high fidelity is very high quality sound. Audio is rendered at a very high, what they call depth. Like it's very high resolution sound that sounds. Well, it's up for debate. But sounds could sound better. Now, there's always these disputes. But high fidelity is just listening. It's just higher quality music than normal. Then higher quality audio, I guess. It's also high-fi. Yep, that's the abbreviation. Then there's low-fi, too. Low fidelity, which is just lower quality sound or audio. That has more defects, like distortion and unwanted noise. Speaking of which, what is distortion? Distortion, all right. So you have a sound file or audio file, right? So if you send it through, say, a receiver, what's the technique? Would be describe a receiver real quick. Well, it's a thing that receives audio. And sends it to an athlete. OK. And sometimes a receiver can change the audio in a way. It doesn't change the track. It's not like mixing. But changes it in a way to make it sound different. The output sounds different from the input, pretty much. It's just changing it. It's distortion is anything that causes the audio to be different coming out than it was coming in. Even if it's just a little bit less distortion. So would EQ be that? Or is distortion more unwanted? Excellent question. EQ is controlled distortion, I would say. I would say you could definitely distort audio with EQ. Like you could comically bass boost. That's what the people that their cars rumbling down the street, not because it's just because they have comically bass boosted songs, right? It's just rumbling down the street. That's what they do, they just turn the bass EQ up. Huge speakers. Yeah, they're distorting. They're making the normally we look at distortion in a negative way that has a negative connotation to it. But I guess you could consider. Could it be used? Like, OK, bringing up it as a it's mostly negative, but could it be used like everywhere at the end of time? Distortion is used. Everywhere at the end of time, that is a prime example. Because it's heavily distortion. Heavily distorted. And for those of you who don't know, everywhere at the end of time, it kind of simulates dementia and the distortion of memories. And it's like an album of songs that are used to show how it feels to have dementia and that sort of thing. And they've distorted the audio to make it seem like that, to give you the sense of it. And I think that that is definitely distortion. But I think that it's controlled distortion in a way that makes the piece still more towards an EQ standpoint rather than trash. To say for these. All right. Well, I mean, I think everybody's heard of distortion. I don't know if we're describing it perfectly. I think that distortion is when you hear something. Let's see, how would a normal person hear distortion? Oh, I know. You plug in your earbuds and your phone and you turn the aux cable as you go. And sometimes you can hear it as you do it. That's distortion. We're also plugging in while the device is on. Yeah, or when you plug in that initial pop. That's what distortion kind of sounds like. All right. And then equipment usually causes that. Lower quality? Unless you are to mix it. And interference? Go over that real quick. Yeah. You want to go with that or you want me to go with that? I think you'll have it better. Well, you drive it down the road and you have the FM radio on, or maybe the AM radio. That's another example of distortion is the AM static. But you drive and then you drive under some high voltage lead lines. And the radio kind of goes whoosh and then passes as you pass under it. That's just interference. It's just outside sources, not necessarily from your equipment, but outside electricity, outside radio waves that are interfering with the sound waves. So not grounding, would that be interference? Or would that be equipment based? Yes. Yes. OK. It's distortion. Yeah, distortion. Distortion, OK. Now moving on to some equipment. So what do you need for high-five setup? Do you need a high-five setup? Oh, yes. That's better. I think we should go into who a high-five setup is and what a high-five setup is. So you have enthusiasts, audio enthusiasts. You have people for studio for their job. Yeah, pretty much. A studio setting who will need higher quality hearing. And they're being an enthusiast in just studio. Really, the two? Just they call the people that really like, that have like a high-five setup and they really like audio, audio files. Audio files. Audio files, because they're paranoid about audio. They're audio files. That's what they're called. Do I hear a little bit of feedback? There's nothing. No, we're just by the end of the day. So you get feedback. Do we need to find feedback? Or do we need to for a high-five setup? That's more recording audio. But would that also be put in there? Because you have to have high-quality soundtracks, which means high-quality recording. But let's say you're an audio file, or you call yourself an audio file. What is that need? If I say I'm an audio file, what's the connotation of being an audio file? It's kind of like a hobby that you take pretty far. Yeah. You know, everybody has a hobby. But audio file is the next level. It's a very expensive hobby. And it's spending a lot of money and having really nice audio equipment to listen to music. Which you don't. Some people would be like, hey, I don't need to listen to that high-quality music. But I guess this is like, what would you compare it to? Well, I would say that an audio file is, well, many people enjoy watching TV on their board. But an audio file, instead of watching TV, they sit down and they consciously listen to music. That's the goal. It's a lot different than, say, listen to the music in the car, because you're driving. Not fully focused on the music itself. And you're not focusing on the music, but audio files, you sit down, you put on a really nice pair of headphones to get the best audio quality possible. And you just sit there and you listen to music. And that is the best, in my opinion, form of entertainment. Like that is awesome. It's so much fun to just sit down and just think and listen to the music and do nothing else. And that would be what an audio file is. Holy moly, my phone is like blowing up over here. Goodness. Yes, yes, yes. My phone just died, so that also works. So, OK, so Hi-Fi, now records. They're also audio. Yes. And you can get really high quality records. That's true. And there's a different, OK, but some records have pops. Would that be, could you listen to that at Hi-Fi quality too? An audio file, you see, it's tough because it doesn't really necessarily mean the source of the music or whatever you're listening to. Because the best part, if you ask somebody who's really into vinyl, is the expense and the inconvenience of listening to vinyl. And it's because it's physical, right? It's not like streaming Spotify or you just pull up a track and you go. You know, you actually look at the album art, right? It's physical and you can read the descriptions on the album and you can actually hold it and look at the tracks and put it down. You put such a cool experience. But it forces you to listen. Yeah, and it forces you to be more into the music, which is a great experience for a lot of people. But if you're somebody like me who neither has the space or the money to do vinyl, I listen to Tidal, right? It's Spotify, but specializes in mastered and very high quality streaming as opposed to just regular quality streaming. They like Spotify. So part of the experience of vinyl is the pops. And then they don't necessarily, an audiophile, probably, it's into vinyl, probably wouldn't care very much. And there's a different sound that comes from a vinyl. Even if it's really high quality and there's no pops, it's still a different sound. So you'd say, hi, audiophile is more towards not so much the source. Yeah, it's not so much the source. It's just the final product. OK. That's what I would say. And their equipment to make it sound as good as possible. Sounds good. But we're talking about all this audiophile stuff. Being an audiophile, but what great sound replication and no distortion and all that sort of stuff. But what is involved in a setup? What do you need to make an audiophile set of happen? You could, I argue, you could just have a really high quality pair of headphones, which also needs its own equipment. So that's that. So that's close. I mean, the thing with all of this is that you could spend as much money as you want it. It's endless. You, when he says it's endless, I mean, you could spend like $21,000 on a pair of headphones, not even the need the amplification or the streaming equipment. Just on the headphones themselves. Or you could spend thousands of dollars on the power cable to your equipment. Like this goes up and above and beyond. But I would say you don't have to have that to have a great experience. I think a good pair of studio headphones. $200? Yeah, $200. And the right equipment to power the headphones? Yeah, so, I mean, what's involved in powering the headphones? So headphones have different headphones. Most headphones have really low ohm. I think it's ohm. Ohm, ohm, ohm. OHM. Now that's how he's called. So basically the amount of power required to make these speakers go on headphones, right? Resistance. Some have really high ones. Mine is $250. $250 old? That sounds about right. So to get really high bass or really good resonating bass, I would need a DAC. Yeah, or headphone amp. Or headphone amp to power it, because a normal phone does not do that. Typically, the trade-off of higher ohm, well, the benefit of having a higher resistance pair of headphones is better sound. And not always, but a lot of time, better sound quality, especially in the low end. And your phone, for example, has a little built-in headphone amp that's powering, you know, if you're lucky enough to have some of an ox board in your phone. It's powering your headphones. But when we say a headphone amp, this is like a standalone. It's like a box. Not that big, maybe. I mean, it's a piece of gear. Yeah. Maybe Blaze could look it up and we could end the eye in. But it has more power to drive those headphones, as opposed to just your phone speaker. And that definitely does sound better when you have a really high-powered amp. So I would put some money into your headphones and your headphone amplifier. But I don't know. Let's see, what other components are needed? I mean, how do you get the audio into your headphone amp? You have title? You have some sound. How do you get it to your headphones? So you could go through your computer. That's a good idea. Could you run phone to DAC to headphone? I think so. Just some kind of audio input that inputs high quality. So a DAC is a digital analog converter. So that's how you can do this thousands of ways. You can have a DAC, which converts your phone signal or the digital signal, like through USB or through Bluetooth or through anything that's digital into the sound waves, like the analog sound waves required by a headphone amp or your headphones. So, and don't quote me on this. In fact, you may know about this more than I do. But you go from your computer, per se, through USB to your DAC and then to a headphone amp? Or would you just go the DAC? I think you could just go to a DAC. Well, maybe there's a combo. Sometimes there's a combo. I've seen a combo where it has a separate DAC. You just stack them on top of each other. Yeah, and some of them are all one unit, too. Yeah. So I wouldn't put as much money into the DAC. No? You know, it's one of those things that if it says a lot of things, say, made in America, and you think, oh, it was made in America, that's good. Not necessarily for DACs, because China makes some very good DACs for very cheap. Very good sounding. And so you don't necessarily have to put, if you want to save some money, you can save money on the DAC area. It might impact your overall sound quality, but not as much as spending less on the headphones. So you get decent DAC? Yeah, you could get away with a decent DAC. And then higher quality headphones with the money you save from? Yeah, and maybe a higher quality amp, per se. OK. But it's not always headphones. No. That audiophiles have, in fact. But that's probably the most. Yeah, that's the budget. You know, get a nice pair of low-wits. I have a pair of AudioTechnica ATM50Xs. You should have brought our headphones in. Yeah, I should have brought my headphones in to show. It's on my desk. I know exactly where it is. And it's interesting pair of headphones because it's made for sound mixing. So in like, it's very neutral. Like in a pair of Beats, you probably have a very interesting equalizer wave. That's preset. Yeah, that's preset. They will amplify certain parts of the music. So like, the bass is amplified by the mid-range for that audience. I think that's right. To make the music that the target audience for the product sound better. But in a studio pair of headphones, there's no artificial increase or decrease in the sound. Because if you're mixing a live concert, for example, or you're doing a recording, you want headphones that will replicate the sound as naturally. Otherwise you might get double bass or no bass. Yeah, like if you have, if your headphones that you're mixing it have double the bass, if it's bass-boosted headphones, you're going to know, wow, this sounds good. But you have the bass turned all the way down because your headphones are amplified by the bass. So you know, the bass is turned down. And so your final product will have no bass because your headphones are amplified by the bass. So that's, but I chose those headphones because, A, they were a little bit cheaper, and B, because it allows you to have fine control over what you want to hear in the headphones. So it has a software? Yeah, you can do it through software, or you can do it however you want. But I like that control. That's nice. But you have a way better pair of headphones than I do. Yeah, I have a far superior. They are dynamic. Closed back headphones. They are really nice. I really like them. But they were a little more expensive. They were. Would you say any? Well, yes, that's correct. It doesn't show in preview when you offset the audio. So yes, it's under control. I can edit it in post as much as I hate saying that. I'll fix it in the post. But you will. Or you can just, it's live. It's live production. Live. Oh, we just blew it. Yeah, we're pre-recording this episode. I said live. You blew it. Yeah, I blew it. Yes, we're pre-recording this episode for those of you who don't know, but it's going to be live. Higher quality setup. You can get speakers, but then you need a room that's not echo-y. You can take this as far as you want. Yeah. You can blow tons of cash on it. And what would you say for a studio? Probably using headphones, right? Like a studio environment? Yeah. Also using headphones for? So you can do that, but a lot of professional recording booths have speakers. Really? And I think the speakers are a lot better for sound replication. It sounds more natural. You'll get a better mix out of it. And it's so much more comfortable than wearing headphones. You're just sitting there asking about cables. You just enjoy the ambiance of the music. And the bass sounds better in a physical room as opposed to headphones. Because you feel bass. Less hear it. I mean, you do hear it, but you feel it more. Which is why when you put headphones in, you have to really crank it up to hear the bass. But when you're at a concert, you feel a boom. You feel the bass. That's the way sound. That's why kick drum kind of sounds empty in headphones. But in an auditorium, it sounds really good. Sound has time to travel with the speakers. And the development is just there. And they have really nice speakers in the house. I think it's two in the front, possibly two in the back and on the sides too. I mean, it's a whole surround sound setup. But I don't think that's a professional recording studio. You could take it that far if you want. Could. But that's. I wouldn't recommend it. Because you can save so much money and get almost the same experience. I mean, to a point, your ears aren't going to be sensitive enough to hear the slight changes that maybe a new pair of headphones would have. Absolutely. The interesting thing is, this is a joke, that old people are typically audiophiles. There's a lot of old people audiophiles. I don't know why there's more. There's less younger people. But it's hilarious because there's this joke floating around the audiophile that like, how can you hear the difference in a pair of headphones when you can barely hear me shout your name across the room? Right? Yeah. They're like, oh, these headphones sound so much better than the other ones. Yes, but you're hearing aids. You're hearing aids. Like, hearing is not too good. Like, barely an oscilloscope can measure the difference that you can hear. Old people may. And then we talked about where to get audio, title, and a few other things. Then you go through streaming quality of the audio. Oh, yes. How do you get the best audio quality? Usually a higher streaming rate through kilobytes per second, which is that's like, as you were saying before, it's like resolution. Yeah. Quality. Higher streaming rate is higher resolution. Yeah. It's in math. When you go and buy a TV, they measure resolution. You have 720p, 1080p, 4K. That's the amount of pixels within a given area. It's the density of the pixels, effectively. This is the density of data in a second. If you look at an artificial sound wave, like generally, depending on the, let's just say, one hurt. One hurt audio, one kill hurt, or just one hurt. You're either going to hear an up or a down. That's like no quality whatsoever. But as you increase the kilobytes, you can increase the amount of change per wave. Like, you can fine tune how smooth the wave is, and that translates to perceived quality. So if you have a really low bit rate, it sounds kind of buzzy. Sounds kind of like an arcade game, almost. It's very, you know, it sounds digital. But if you have a really high bit rate in the audio, it sounds way up to a certain point, of course, sounds a lot better. Which I can attest to that. We should do a test. Having a live audio test. Like compared, okay, so you can compare your earbuds, like Apple earbuds, headphones. Headphones are probably better. Depending on what they are, of course. Some are bad, some are good. And then speakers, depends. I like speakers. Your mileage may vary. Well, I feel like you also have to sit in a very specific spot to get the best hearing from the speakers. Speakers are interesting because if you have a speaker setup, you need a lot more equipment. Damn. Because it's not just headphone amp. Because you have to drive speakers, which require that design more power. And instead of pumping into your little ear canals, you have to fill the room, so. So you have the, they call them amps. It's just, you know, a box that all its only purpose is to amplify the signal coming into it. So that your head and then drive the speakers. You need that also a couple other pieces of equipment, don't you? No, we got one minute. Receiver. Yeah, receiver. Of course. Receiver. So, if you want to learn more about this hobby, which I definitely recommend you do. You can find a lot. The internet. I would go to the internet and I would Google just hi-fi audio setup. Don't get too caught up in. How to audiophile. Don't get too caught up in it though. Yeah, don't get too caught up in it. You can go really deep with audiophile stuff. But that'll give you all the information you need to know. You don't need $21,000 headphones. You don't need $21,000 headphones. To have a good setup. So, I'd like to thank you for watching this episode of Techpad. If you're on channel eight, thanks for watching. Make sure to tune into other LPM content. It's pretty awesome. Or come in and make your own content. If you're watching on YouTube, I'd like to thank you. Make sure you like, subscribe the whole bit. Thanks for watching on Twitch. If there's anybody out there. And thanks for watching on Facebook. I'll see you guys next time.